


Displaced, Downward

by Lemon_Lemmings



Series: Turnips [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Animal Death, Coping, Discussion of Suicidal Intent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Minor Character Death, Muteness, Timeline What Timeline, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Trans Male Matt Holt, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14261472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemon_Lemmings/pseuds/Lemon_Lemmings
Summary: Lance knew it was bad as soon as the Yellow Lion started freaking out. Red was prone to explosive outbursts and tossed the occasional tantrum at Lance when it got frustrated because he wasn’t Keith. But he had never seen it look as desperate as Yellow did in that moment, bellowing eerie cries just as bestial as they were mechanical and bodily crashing into everything in a hyper-crazed frenzy.Standalone followup to Oculate.





	Displaced, Downward

**Author's Note:**

> There were two potential companion pieces to the torture fic, and this is somehow neither. Go figure. This is a gen fic and there's no sex but there is a short segment of teenagers talking bout their junk so I guess it's fair to warn for that. 
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> You don't have to read Oculate for this to make sense.  
> Fixed some typos and changed a couple, minor things.

Lance knew it was bad as soon as the Yellow Lion started freaking out. Yellow was usually the most docile of the Lions and that was the first time Lance had seen it turn on without Hunk around, let alone go spastic like that.

All of a sudden it started snarling and slamming itself into the wall. Allura tried to calm it down but even with her life forced linked to the Lions, she couldn’t get through. Yellow left several massive craters in the castle and they finally just had to let it out before it could do any worse than that.

Red was prone to explosive outbursts and tossed the occasional tantrum at Lance when it got frustrated because he wasn’t Keith. But Lance had never seen it look as desperate as Yellow did in that moment, bellowing eerie cries just as bestial as they were mechanical and bodily crashing into everything in a hyper-crazed frenzy.

Lance felt possessed by the sheer sense of wrongness and knew immediately that things were very bad. The sick and cold knowledge gripped his gut with grim certainty.

When he was younger, a farmer friend of the family brought over a litter of his barn cat’s kittens. They kept three of them, but Lance’s favorite was a pure white fuzzy ball of energy he named Leche. She loved climbing trees, batting around his sister’s hair ties, and following him everywhere.

One day Leche followed him across the street and her quick little prance with her tail high in the air was not nearly fast enough to escape the speed junkie racing around the corner, showing off a classic Lada Vesta. The driver didn’t even stop when their tires squished Leche into the dirt road with a grisly crunch, blood spraying through the dust.

The whole thing was deeply horrifying beyond words and Lance was just screaming, screaming, screaming. Leche screamed too, but only once and then her whole body ceased spasming. Her insides were rendered a paste to the road and some bloody shit soaked the ground beneath her tail, but the worst part was her face.

Her face was mostly intact, but one of her eyeballs was popping out and falling over her tiny, askew jaw.

At seven Lance saw his favorite cat’s eyeball popped out of her skull and it was the most disturbing thing he ever saw and remained the most disturbing thing he ever saw, until at seventeen he saw his favorite friend’s eyeball popped out of his skull and dangling over his cheek.

He was pretty sure Hunk was dead too, at first. And he was nowhere near prepared for the five seconds he felt that excruciating hopelessness, because he knew to prepare himself for _bad_ , but not for _devastating_ —

But Pidge picked up a pulse and Hunk even twitched a little as he made this wounded noise that broke Lance’s heart.

Pidge started crying and Lance felt like he was going to, but he got into position instead.

He thinks it’s the first time he’s directly disobeyed Shiro and it wasn’t nearly as hard as it should’ve been to shoot the Galra Commander in the face and watch her eyeball pop out too.

* * *

“He’ll be healed in a few quintent,” Coran says, eyes tired as he glances up over Hunk’s scans.

“Is anything gonna grow back?” Lance asks uneasily. The pods are weird and he honestly doesn’t know what to expect.

Coran shakes his head. “Only the fingernails.”

“So he’s gonna lose an eye, and his tongue, and…” Lance’s balls ache just thinking about it.

“He’s infertile, yes,” Coran finishes as politely as possible, nodding. “Although he actually has half his tongue, which is a good thing. He’ll be able to swallow without issue.”

If that’s supposed to be good news, then it’s the worst good news Lance has ever heard.

Pidge lets out a short cry where she stands beside Matt, a sound more angry than anything.

“We should’ve been faster!”

“I’m sorry,” Allura mumbles bleakly, raising her head. She’s addressing of them it seems, but her eyes are unwaveringly trained on Hunk’s pod. “I wasn’t strong enough.”

Earth wasn’t exactly right around the corner, and after wormhole-ing for the sixth time in a row, Allura collapsed. She couldn’t power the castle right away to go rescue Hunk. Of course it’s not her fault that she fainted from exhaustion. Lance can’t bring himself to reassure her anyway.

He leaves without another word instead, ducking into the hall as his head goes haywire. The day keeps replaying on hyper speed, some scenes repeating themselves more than others. Specifically the last time he saw Hunk before he came back to find him broken and bloody.

Lance was helping the littlest prisoners to the castle. He was good with kids, they seemed to trust him even though they were scared. Hunk went back to blast the sentries on their tail. That’s the last Lance saw of him, his back.

“Lance, wait.”

A firm hand clasps his shoulder and he turns to see Shiro frowning.

“If you’re mad, I don’t want to hear it,” Lance blurts honestly. “Yell at me later, right now I don’t care.”

“Mad?” Shiro’s features screw up in confusion.

Lance gestures to the violet blood stains eclipsing the blue and white of his armor.

Shiro sighs heavily. “I’m not mad at you, Lance…”

“You sure? Because the second that monster started talking about the arena, you started holding back,” Lance snaps, maybe a little mad himself. “I wasn’t about to let her go just because she watched you and a bunch of other prisoners fight to the death like it was some baseball game!”

“I didn’t want you to kill her—“

“I know!” Lance exclaims, maybe more than a little mad and definitely more rattled than he realized. “I know you wanna learn more about that year you don’t remember and I get it, but learn it from somewhere else! She fucked Hunk up for life and you were gonna go easy on her!?”

“You’re not hearing me,” Shiro says patiently. “I didn’t want _you_ to kill her. You’re right, I hesitated when I shouldn’t have, and it put you in the position where you took that burden on yourself. I’m sorry.”

Lance dials down a notch or two, swallowing heavily.

“She was never going to leave that room,” Shiro says, grim but plain. “I should’ve carried through with it before you felt like you had to. Are you okay?”

Lance glances down to the violet splatters he wears and shrugs.

“I haven’t thought about it. Not about what I did or how it makes me feel. I’m just thinking about Hunk.”

Shiro gives his shoulder a careful squeeze and Lance kind of wants to hug him and kind of feels like he’s growing to cry, but he just shuffles his feet.

“He’ll probably need some space when he comes out of the pod. Some time to adjust.”

“Adjust,” Lance repeats, the word falling flat. “Shiro. She cut off half his tongue, which is like, the worst thing she could possibly do to him. Hunk uses his tongue more than anybody else I know. He has to taste test everything he cooks, he takes pride in his comedic timing even though his puns are awful, and he sings. We’re not talking tone deaf karaoke either, he can really sing.”

“Yeah, I know. I heard him in the showers sometimes.” Shiro chews his lip.

Lance clenches his fists as he thinks about just flat the word _adjust_ falls and how it doesn’t even come close to describing how hard this is going to hit Hunk. He realizes if he has any kind of feeling about what he did, it’s that he should’ve done it sooner.

They should have just killed her when they landed on her ship the first time, Lance thinks. If they killed her before saving her human pets, they wouldn’t have been on a precarious time limit to get them out to begin with. Hunk wouldn’t have been left behind and he wouldn’t have been hurt.

The only thing Lance regrets about what he did is that he didn’t do it soon enough and it’s not the first time he’s had thoughts in that vein of darkness, but it’s the first time he hasn’t been chilled by the them, and it’s the first time he’s powerfully, intimately agreed with them.

* * *

“You think he’s gonna hate us?” Pidge asks.

Neither of them can seem to stray too far from Hunk’s pod. She gave in and got an extension cord to use her laptop on the steps, while Lance alternates pacing and stretches.

“Maybe? I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”

“If he does hate us, you’re gonna be the exception,” Pidge murmurs, keyboard clacking as she types. “You killed for him.”

“He might not know that,” Lance mumbles, dropping to the floor for some planks. “He was pretty out of it…”

“Even if Hunk doesn’t hate us, I kind of hate us.” Pidge lowers her head until he can’t see her face behind her laptop screen.

“We suck,” Lance agrees bitterly. Some teammates they were, inadvertently ditching Hunk in the first place and then coming back when the worst was already over.

“We should’ve known,” she says, voice small. “I feel so stupid.”

It’s downright surreal hearing something like that come from Pidge’s mouth. She’s still hiding her face and Lance knows why when he catches a quiet, wet sniffle.

“I guess we just have to do whatever we can to help him when he comes out,” Lance says, unsure if he’s actually suggesting it or just trying to comfort her.

Either way the words feel empty.

“I know. Um,” Pidge clears her throat, resumes typing. “Matt wanted to talk to you.”

“Huh?”

Pidge’s brother isn’t exactly his favorite guy. He’s not a bad dude by any means, but Lance really isn’t down with the goggly eyes he’s got for Allura. It’s also annoying as heck that he beat the Demonsphere boss Lance was trying to for weeks in all of like, two hours. Like Pidge, Matt has a habit of rambling on about a bunch of techno-jumbo that Lance doesn’t understand, and that can get seriously grating if Hunk’s not around to translate in terms he can relate to.

After this, he’s probably not going to be up to doing that for awhile (if ever, if ever even verbally) and in any case, Lance has absolutely no idea what Matt would possibly want to talk to him about.

“It’s not exactly my place to say. It’s not super urgent though. No mission stuff or anything.”

“That’s vague but okay.” Lance shifts into a sit to do some hamstring stretches. “Should we get Hunk something like a whiteboard?”

“He has half his tongue and all his vocal cords. Theoretically, he can still speak.”

“Clearly?” Lance raises a doubtful brow.

“I don’t know…” Pidge hesitates, “but I wouldn’t think so.”

Lance’s chest tightens. “What are we gonna do?”

“Better than a whiteboard, I hope,” Pidge mutters.

Lance hopes so too. Hunk deserves more than a whiteboard.

* * *

“So Pidge said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah.” Matt’s eyes flicker up from the data tablet in his lap.

“Okay.” Lance folds his arms and leans back against the wall. “What’s up?”

“So you were all pretty cool about it when she came out?”

“Duh. She’s still Pidge.” Heck, pretty much everybody except Lance had already picked up on her being trans. It took him a minute or to to actually _get_ it, but it wasn’t any less okay with him.

Matt’s lips briefly twitch with a smile and then he exhales. “I’m the same as she is. Or technically opposite? She’s a trans girl, I’m a trans guy. It's kinda of funny. When we were younger, we swapped all of our clothes.”

Lance blinks rapidly, surprised. Not just to hear that Matt’s trans, but by the fact he’s coming out to him specifically. It’s not like they hang out or anything.

“More power to you?” Lance ventures, giving him a thumbs up.

“Thanks. For awhile after I got captured, I was out of luck when it came to testosterone. But after joining the rebels, Te'osh hooked me up with something comparable. It’s in pill form, so no shots. I hear Hunk’s bad with those.”

“I think it’s the blood that bothers him more than the needles, but Hunk’s not—” Lance breaks off, realization cracking him like a brick over the head. “Man, I didn’t even think about that part…”

“I can hook him up,” Matt continues softly, “but I thought it might be better if you talked to him. It’s probably a touchy subject.”

The word _touchy_ falls just as flat as _adjust_ does.

“They neutered him like a dog.” Lance covers his mouth with his hand, burning with helpless fury.

“Worse,” Matt says, a hard set to his eyes. “Dogs get knocked out first.”

All of a sudden, Lance bursts into tears. Everything that happened just hits him all at once and tears quickly escalate into full-blown sobs. He’s crying over Hunk and Leche, and the sheer lack of guilt he probably should feel some teeny, tiny trace of no matter how much that Galra monster deserved to die, because it’s not about her, it’s about how his mom probably wouldn’t want him to be a killer.

He hates that he’s crying at all, especially that he’s crying in front of Pidge’s brother who is stupidly cool and stupidly smart, and stupidly considerate too, apparently. Crying in front of people is embarrassing to begin with and crying in front of stupidly great people is even worse, but he just can’t stop.

What kind of paladin is he if he can’t even protect his best friend?

“Uh-oh. Come on, let’s sit down.”

Lance lets Matt guide him to a chair because he can’t see through the blur of tears. Matt parks him down but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. When Lance fights his way to the end of a mess of blubbery, hiccupy sobs, he passes him a water pouch.

He must realize Lance is embarrassed because once he sees Lance is steady enough to punch the straw through the hole, he nonchalantly goes back to messing around on his tablet.

* * *

Usually healing pod releases are like, a thing.

Everybody hangs around to welcome the wounded party back. Shiro gets nervous when he’s swarmed, so when he comes out of the pod, there’s less affectionate tackling but more soft-voiced reassurances. Pidge takes the longest to thaw out, so someone always has a blanket or two ready for her. When it’s Lance, Hunk squeezes him so hard, he’s sure he’s going to have to go right back in.

After, there’s usually food and talking, and double-checking, but this time around the only person who’s around to greet Hunk is Allura and Lance doesn’t even know he’s out until breakfast.

“A head’s up would’ve been nice,” Pidge gripes, stabbing her fork into her spotted pancake thing.

“I thought a crowd might overwhelm him,” Allura says quietly.

“How did he seem?” Shiro asks.

“I’m not quite sure.” Allura folds her hands, frowning. “I went over what the pod healed and what it couldn’t. He took it well, I suppose. He didn’t have much of a reaction at all, really, so I asked if he wanted something to eat. He declined and left.”

“Declined verbally?” Pidge asks, lips folding down and brow quirking up.

Allura shakes her head.

“Where’d he go?” Lance asks, stomach twisting apprehensively.

“I’m not sure about that either,” Allura confesses. “Following seemed…unwelcome.”

“I’m gonna go find him,” Lance decides, sliding his plate aside.

“Lance,” Shiro starts, a gentle warning.

“I’m his best friend.” Lance pushes his chair back, getting up. “It’s okay, I know when not to be too much.”

“Since when?” Pidge mutters, scrunching her nose.

There’s a bit of a bite in her tone but Lance rolls his eyes instead of biting back. She’s always snappy when she’s worried about something, but he’s worried too— too worried to take the bait.

* * *

Finding Hunk is not as easy as Lance thinks it’s going to be. He tries his room first. He tries the lounge next, and then the game room. No success.

He’s on his way to Hunk and Pidge’s unofficial lab when he hears Keith at it again on the training deck. Might as well ask Keith if he’s seen Hunk. Then he stops short, temporarily blanking as he works past the brain fart.

Keith isn’t here. He’s been with the Marmorites for weeks.

Lance trots into the training deck, eyes widening as he finally finds his friend.

Hunk is pounding the shit out of a punching bag, hardly gives the thing a chance to swing back before he’s smashing another storm of fists into it. Lance is at a standstill, just staring. Hunk hasn’t noticed him, he’s got headphones on.

Okay, this is concerning.

Lance has never seen him go for the punching bag. They use the gladiator bots and each other for routine training. When they work out together, Hunk pretty much sticks to weightlifting. He’ll hop on the bike now and then, but no, he doesn’t touch the punching bag.

It’s not like Lance didn’t expect him to be pissed. He must be pissed as as hell at that soldier, at what happened to him, probably even at the rest of his team too.

Lance is well familiar with Hunk’s anger and it doesn’t look anything like this.

It looks like baking when he wants to cool down, making a point of eating every delicious thing by himself when he’s feeling particularly passive aggressive. Or it’s throwing himself into mechanics if he wants to stew it in for awhile. When it’s an argument, it turns into messily penned charts and diagrams he’ll shove in your face to prove he’s in the right.

Hunk’s anger can look like a lot of things depending on the flavor, but it never looks like violence. Not unless they’re fighting in an actual battle.

Concern building, Lance shuffles over and pulls his headphones off. Hunk jumps, colliding with the punching bag as he swivels around in a start.

“Sorry!” Lance backs up, wincing guiltily. “Just me. Hi.”

Hunk blinks, panting and looking him over with the eye he has left. He’s got his headband tied like a bandage to cover the place where the other one used to be.

“That looks badass,” Lance offers, deciding to go with the casual approach. “Like what one of your warrior cat brides had going on, the intimidating eyepatch of power look. What was her name? Kuvyr? Between you and me, I thought she was the cooler one.”

Hunk lets out an exasperated huff and motions for Lance to get out of the way.

Evidently casual is the wrong approach.

“Please,” Lance murmurs, putting a hand on his shoulder, “can we just talk for a minute?”

At this, Hunk flinches and lowers his head.

Crap, that was a poor choice of words.

“My bad.” Lance rubs at the back of his neck. “Really though, man, I don’t care if you sound different, None of us are going to, you know that.”

Hunk raises his head and his features are fixed with something so hard and so hurt, that Lance doesn’t even notice as he’s manually moved out of the way of the punching bag. Hunk makes a grab for the headphones but Lance catches his sleeve first. He gives an urgent tug, floundering for the right thing to say.

“I killed her,” he blurts. “Do you remember that?”

Apparently not. Hunk’s jaw drops and Lance gets a glimpse of the half-tongue that’s left.

“It doesn’t change anything, I get that. But yeah, just so you know.”

The image of her eyeball flashes through his mind, the glow disappearing from the otherworldly gold as it bulged out. Vibrant violet blood spraying amid glossy bundles of brain matter and splinters of shattered skull.

One hit was all it took, one firm clench of his trigger finger and her head exploded.

Hunk blinks and gives a short, uncertain head shake as he touches the inside of Lance’s elbow.

“I can’t tell if you’re asking why I did it, or if I’m okay,” Lance confesses honestly, and the simple fact that he has to do that feels like a punch to the gut.

Hunk pauses and Lance sees conflict glint in his eye before he presses his lips tight and holds two fingers up.

“So that means both? Or the second option?”

Hunk lowers his hand and a sob hitches out of him. Tears mist his eye as his shoulders shudder and Lance just hugs him because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Yeah, this sucks.” Lance threads his fingers through the back of Hunk’s hair and presses forward so Hunk can lean into him. He does, slumping forward and burying his face into Lance’s shoulder.

“This sucks a lot,” Lance sighs, his throat stinging like the words have barbs. “I’m sorry. We’re all sorry, we should’ve done better. You have permission to hate us, okay?”

Hunk curls his fists into Lance’s shirt so tight the fabric digs into his skin, and he doesn’t know how to interpret that either.

* * *

“You think he’s eating?” Pidge asks, munching on these flaky, salty pastries Hunk baked a huge bowl of.

“I’m sure he is. He’s making all this stuff…” Lance opens the fridge and surveys the overstuffed shelves.

It’s been two days since Hunk’s been out of the pod, but nobody’s seen much of him. Shiro was right about the space thing. After crying on Lance, he went back to pulverizing the punching bag and he hasn’t communicated much with anyone. He won’t join them for meals but he’s gotta be going through every cookbook on the ship, cramming the fridge with multiple dishes and snacks for everybody else to pick at.

This much shows he doesn’t hate them, which is something of a relief, even though Lance never would’ve blamed him if he did.

“Yeah, but that’s the thing. There’s so much of it.” Pidge gestures to the fridge. “There’d be less if he was eating, right?

Lance worries his lip between his teeth. Hunk shying away from social eating right now is a totally different animal than if he’s skipping out on food entirely. The former is a big bummer, yeah, but the latter could be a serious problem.

“He’s working out like crazy, so I’m gonna say we don’t have to worry about that. He’s gotta be getting the fuel from somewhere, right?”

“That’s true. I just hope it’s actual food and not those weird energy drinks with our Lions printed on them.”

“Nah, Hunk hates those Voltron Show drinks. He said they taste like motor oil. Wait, he can still taste, right?”

“I’m sure. You’ve got tastebuds in your throat, I think.” Pidge puts down the pastry she was about to eat and fidgets uncomfortably, drumming her fingers along the counter. “I came up on his blind spot earlier. I didn’t mean to, but it really spooked him. I feel awful.”

“He didn’t swing at you, did he?” Lance asks uneasily.

Shiro could do that if you caught him off guard. You had to be careful around Shiro if it looked like he was zoning out, or if he didn’t seem to notice you. Hunk’s deal is different, obviously, but Lance figures it’s close enough that they might have to watch out for similar stuff.

“No, he flinched,” Pidge mumbles. “I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”

“Better for your face,” Lance offers.

Pidge scoffs, some of the gloom lifting from her expression.

“It did get me thinking though,” she says, “maybe we can get him a new one. Sendak had an artificial replacement that was clearly functional to some degree or another.”

Lance’s eyes widen. “That’s not a bad idea, but how could we do that?”

“I was going to ask Coran, I think—“ Pidge breaks off as Hunk himself walks over the threshold.

He’s clearly been working out again, which so far still means foregoing conventional Hunk workouts and just assaulting the punching bag like he's got a grudge against it. A towel drapes over his shoulders and the front of his t-shirt is soaked with perspiration. He glances to them as he sidles around the counter and Lance steps back to let him get to the fridge.

“Hi,” he greets.

Hunk just smirks, taking a water pouch out of the fridge and and leaning back against the door with a knowing look on his face.

“Okay,” Pidge gives in. “How much of that did you hear?”

Hunk sets the pouch down and slips a small notepad out of the pack on his belt, scrawling a note and passing it to Lance. He then takes the pouch again and stabs the straw in, with what Lance thinks is a little more force than necessary.

He doesn’t mention it though, he just reads over the note.

_I’ll take a prosthetic if it shoots lasers. Otherwise I’m keeping this Kuyvr style._

“Huh. Hey Pidge, do you think Sendak’s eye had lasers?”

“I’m sure he would’ve shot us with them if it did, so I’m gonna guess not. But I don’t see why we couldn’t look into…“ Pidge trails off, her face falling as she gleans something from Hunk’s. “Oh. You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”

Hunk nods, giving a gruff snort as he pushes himself off the fridge. He winds around the counter and heads for the exit but Pidge snags the hem of his shirt first.

“Wait. We’re not talking behind your back or anything, we’re just trying to figure out what we can do.” She quickly glances to Lance for backup and Lance eagerly hurries over.

“We just want to help, dude,” he promises, gently nudging his arm. “Don’t go.”

Hunk pauses, considering.

“You’re sweating like me,” Pidge teases softly. “Don’t you think it’s time you took a break? I bet the punching bag needs a break.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees lightly. “Lay off before you bust it. Just hang out with us for awhile, we can watch a movie or something.”

“You can pick the popcorn seasoning,” Pidge singsongs, trying to entice.

It gets a smile out of him but Hunk still shakes his head. He scrawls another note, sticks it to the counter where they can both read it, and escapes into the hall.

_Maybe later._

“Dang it,” Lance sighs in frustration, draping himself over the counter.

“How are we supposed to help when he won’t even stick around longer than two minutes?” Pidge dejectedly hangs her head.

“I don’t know. We could be making it worse without realizing it. Like, we have no idea what he went through. It’s the same with Shiro, we have no idea why some stuff messes with him, or when something’s gonna trigger him.”

“You’ve got a point. We’d probably be better at it if we could relate, or if we had more of a context for what exactly happened.” As soon as the words leave her mouth, Pidge gasps.

Her head snaps right up, eyes sharp behind her glasses. Lance can practically see the metaphorical lightbulb of an idea illuminating like a halo.

“Spill, Miss Genius, what are you thinking?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.” Pidge stuffs one last pastry in her mouth and scurries off, leaving Lance bemused and alone.

* * *

Eventually Hunk leaves the training deck to return to the kitchen. Lance knows better than to get in his way when he’s in master chef mode, so he simply leaves him to it and goes to the training deck himself.

Some splotches on the punching bag catch his eye. They’re dry but they can’t be old, because they’re still more reddish than brownish. Hunk was wearing his gloves, but Lance supposes he could’ve bled through.

Or maybe they’re Keith’s from awhile back, but then Keith wears gloves too, so maybe Allura.

If Alteans even have red blood. Lance has never seen Allura or Coran bleed and with any luck, it’s going to stay that way. Still, he can’t help wondering if it’s a different color. It’s not something he’s ever thought about before.

If he had to guess, he’d say green. All the sci-fi shows and movies on Earth depict aliens with green blood. Most of them do anyway, but hey, maybe he’s wrong because sci-fi was never Lance’s favorite genre and he earnestly hasn’t watched much of it beyond the blockbuster titles.

If he hadn’t seen it for himself, he probably would’ve assumed Galra blood was green too. With that thought in mind, he activates his bayard.

Killing the commander who tortured Hunk was the first time he’s ever killed at all. Lance supposes in the back of his mind he always knew it was possible (even probable) that he’d fire a fatal shot. They were fighting a war, after all. But he never really dwelled much on it.

Now that he’s done it, he feels different. There’s a shift inside, a private acknowledgement that he’s done something there is no returning from. It isn’t the same as guilt though, and that’s an emotion that’s still failed to sprout in the aftermath.

Lance doesn’t think it ever will. He doesn’t think he has it in him to mourn a monster who rounded up human beings like cattle and experimented on them for pleasure, even without what happened to Hunk considered. And what happened to Hunk is _all_ he can consider, because he misses his best friend’s voice and he’s frightened by this new inability to read hm.

They clicked like magnets from the beginning and reading Hunk came as naturally as breathing. Now it feels as impossible as holding the ocean in his hands, because Hunk isn’t a person whose anger looks like punching or whose sadness looks like disconnecting, but that’s exactly what’s going on with the person who left that room.

Lance knows there were more lost pieces than an eye, a tongue, and a sac. Those are bad enough but they’re also physical so they’re obvious, and there’s so much that isn’t obvious. There’s so much hurt he wasn’t there to protect him from and even more repercussions of that hurt he doesn’t recognize yet.

It’s only been two days and it feels like it must’ve been two years.

How could just two days put this much distance between them?

Lance activates the target probes, watching them bob and spin in cycles. He shoots but he’s distracted. His first shot is a miss and his second is a graze. The probes seem to taunt him and usually he’d find motivation there, but today he’s just looking for a pastime more than he’s looking to hone his skills anyway.

Lance eventually shoots them all to dissipating sparkles and he changes his bayard to its sniper shape for round two. Before he can reset the probes, the door slides open. Lance warily expects to see Hunk back to finish off the punching bag, but it’s Allura who slinks in.

She’s just as surprised to see Lance as he is to see her, stopping short and clearing her throat. “Staying sharp, I see. That’s good.”

Lance smirks. “Aren’t you supposed to be napping, Princess?”

The fact that they’re laying low for a spell and not diving right back into battle is for Allura’s benefit as much as it is Hunk’s. She needs a few days to recover from all the wormhole-ing.

“I got restless,” Allura admits. “I don’t like laying idly when there’s so much to be done.”

“Pretty sure you need it, since you literally collapsed from overexertion.”

“Not my finest moment,” Allura sighs, shyly touching at the cloudy puff of her bun. “Certainly my worst timing.”

Lance doesn’t disagree but Allura feels bad enough without him helping convince her it’s her fault by voicing that thought.

“How are you feeling?”

“Still a tad tired, although it’s not me I’m worried about.” Allura comes over, her eyes flitting over the red bayard. “You value life as much as I do. I realize it must’ve been hard to take it, even the life of your enemy.”

“It was a lot harder finding Hunk half dead.” Lance thinks of his eye dangling over his bloodied cheek and swallows thickly.

“How is he?” Allura asks.

She keeps her chin up, but Lance doesn’t miss the waver of her gaze.

“I have no idea,” Lance tells her honestly. “I can’t figure him out.”

“We lasted for a few phoebs without the Black Lion,” Allura murmurs. “We had no choice in that case, of course. Our mission comes before all of us as individuals and I won’t compromise it, but if Hunk needs some time before piloting again, that’s fair.”

 _Fair_ sounds as flat as _touchy_ and _adjust_ do.

“Let him know you feel that way,” Lance says quietly. “It can’t hurt.”

“Hunk was the first one to come back for me when I fell behind in the Blue Lion.” Allura folds her arms in a way that she’s almost hugging herself. “He came back for me but when I was supposed to go back for him, I fell to the floor.”

“It’s not like you did it on purpose, Princess. Passing out isn’t exactly something you can control.”

“Regardless, I can’t forgive myself for it. However, this isn’t about me.” Allura unfolds her arms. “I’ll talk to him about a reprieve from piloting. Do you think there’s anything else I can do?”

“I wish I knew,” Lance mumbles, deflating.

* * *

Lance wakes to hands shaking his shoulders and an urgent voice harshly whispering his name. He fumbles tiredly to get his eye mask off and he's evidently taking too long for whatever sleep-hating demon is trying to get him up, because his hands are batted out of the way.

His mask is yanked off and there’s Pidge’s staring at him with her eyes bugging and her complexion washed ghoulish in the dim lighting. She looks like she’s about to cry, or maybe throw up, and Lance immediately realizes something is wrong.

“S’going on?” he asks, sitting up.

The fog of sleep is still fleeing his mind, but he knows it’s not the castle. The alarm would be bleating if the castle were in danger.

Pidge shakes her head, wordlessly opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

“Did you blow something up?” Lance asks, thinking it might be a project gone awry.

“I watched,” she babbles, rocking in distress. “I watched it all, and I wasn’t sure if I should go to Shiro or you, or straight to Hunk, but I don’t think I can ask by myself because I don’t even know how to ask and I’m scared of the answer—“

“Pidge, you’re not making any sense.” Lance swings his legs over the side of the bed and reaches for her shoulder. “Catch your breath so you can explain what you’re talking about.”

Pidge nods up and down like a bobble-head and closes her eyes. She spends a few moments properly inhaling and exhaling, and then she opens them again.

“When I hacked Vaqnak’s ship, I got access to the security footage,” she says, quavery but composed. “It’s still saved on my laptop, and I thought it might be easier to understand Hunk if we knew more about what he went through.”

“You didn’t,” Lance says, but he knows she did. There’s a raw horror carved into her face that he’s never seen before.

“I knew it was gonna be bad. I knew it was gonna be _so_ bad,” she stresses, voice as sticky as putty. “I thought I could handle it because we’ve seen really bad stuff before. Maybe I could’ve if it was just the torture part, but there’s something else.”

“What do you mean?” Dread pools in his stomach.

Pidge starts rocking again and grasps at Lance’s wrists, grip so fierce her nails break into his skin.

“I think Hunk tried to kill himself.”

Lance doesn’t respond. He can’t respond because all those words make sense individually, but when they’re strung together like that, they’re incomprehensible gibberish. There’s no way that those words in that order can describe anything resembling reality.

“He didn’t get his tongue cut out,” Pidge continues, grip so tight Lance feels his blood welling under her nails. “He bit it off.”

Suddenly Lance’s heart is pounding so hard he feels like it’s going to break from the cage of his chest to splat against the wall. His lungs burn as the air trapped in them grows stale.

“The lingual artery runs through the tongue and Hunk knows that,” Pidge chokes out. “Maybe he couldn’t take it, or he thought we abandoned him.”

“An accident,” Lance gasps. “Like when people have seizures.”

Pidge shakes her head vigorously, the circulation in his hands long gone, squeezed off by her desperate ones. “It was definitely on purpose. I played it back three times to be sure.”

“No,” Lance insists, disbelief reflexive even as his heart pounds harder. “Hunk wouldn’t do that. I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it so you don’t have to see it,” Pidge begs. “Lance, you really don’t wanna see it.”

“I think I have to,” he whispers, growing cold as fearful finality creeps up his back.

* * *

Pidge hides her face into his shoulder most of the time. There’s no audio, which Lance is wretchedly grateful for, because he can see when Hunk screams with visual alone and he doesn’t think he’d have the strength to stomach listening to it too.

Lance forces himself to sit through the entire thing, but the moment it’s over he can’t smack the lid of her laptop down fast enough. His stomach corkscrews inside him. An inescapable ill feeling like spreads like slick oil beneath the skin. He can’t shake the horror burrowed deep in his marrow, doesn’t think he ever will.

“What do we do?” Pidge asks, her nervous rocking starting up again.

Lance says nothing. He’s still processing, at a loss. Hunk bit his own tongue off. He bit his own tongue off and Lance isn’t an anatomy expert, but Pidge must be right about the artery thing because the blood shot out like an erupting volcano.

Hunk would be dead if his torturer didn’t make him deep-throat a cauterizer and if that was the intended outcome or not, Lance doesn’t know, but the footage doesn’t lie. He bit his tongue off on purpose.

Pidge scrunches into a fetal position next to him and buries her face in her knees as she rocks harder. “Hunk tried to kill himself.”

“Maybe not,” Lance croaks, his voice far away and foreign to his ears. “I mean, yeah, that’s what it looks like, but maybe there’s something we’re not seeing.”

“I’ve seen it three times,” Pidge muffles bleakly into her knees. “What did I miss?”

“Okay, so maybe he did.” Lance swallows. “It must’ve been a heat of the moment, knee-jerk reaction thing. Hunk’s with us now, he’s safe, he won’t…he wouldn’t…”

But Lance is suddenly, irrevocably terrified that he _would_ because there were invisible parts of Hunk left in that room along with all the visible ones, and maybe the part that wanted to live was one of them. It’s a thought that weighs heavy as a boulder, crushing out all the other space in his head.

“I don’t know what to do,” Pidge squeaks, lifting her head. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Let’s talk to Hunk,” Lance decides shakily, mainly because he has a gnawing need to see his friend.

* * *

There’s no answer when they knock on Hunk’s door, which makes Lance incredibly uneasy in light of what he’s just watched. They go inside without permission and even Pidge, whose room hoards all kinds of junk, lets out a gasp.

Hunk’s blankets are in a tangled heap on the floor. Either his shelf gave way or he tore it down, because it’s hanging off the wall at a crooked angle and all the stuff it held is either scattered or broken. The blueprints he’d kept pinned up are shredded and all his drawers have been pulled out. Hunk isn’t the neatest person ever, but the clutter he keeps is organized, orderly. Lance was the messier one back in their dorm. This room looks like a bear tore through it.

“He’s not here, let’s go.”

“Wait.” Pidge weaves her way around the chaos and feels along the edge of the mattress.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure the bedsheets are still here.”

“Why?”

Pidge doesn’t answer but she lets out a sigh of a relief when she pinches the top sheet, and then he understands.

They head to the kitchen next and maybe Hunk never even left, because that’s where they find him. He takes something that looks lumpy and strange but smells heavenly out of the oven, keenly focused on precisely placing it on the cooling rack. So focused that he doesn’t notice them and Pidge scampering up to him like a lost puppy freaks him out.

Hunk flinches and raises his oven mitts in defense.

“Sorry!” she gasps. “Dang it, I did it again. I’m sorry, Hunk…”

Hunk relaxes and pats the top of her head, but she starts sniffling and Lance sees Hunk’s shoulders tense as he realizes something’s wrong. He looks up, then to Lance. Lance isn’t sure what kind of expression he’s wearing because his face is numb, but it seems to spook Hunk even more than Pidge coming up on his blind side did.

The question they need to ask screams silently in Lance’s head but somehow he can’t get his mouth to work.

Hunk dubiously frets between the two of them and slips his mitts off. He hastily scrawls the marker over his whiteboard and holds it up for them.

_You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost!_

“Worse,” Pidge says faintly.

She looks uncertainly back to Lance with her teeth in her lip and he pushes himself forward, shuffling up beside her.

“Yeah,” he starts, insides churning. “We uh, we’ve been pretty worried about you. And now we’re more worried ‘cause we know you bit your tongue off.”

The whiteboard falls right out of Hunk’s grasp and clatters to the floor, shock stark on his face.

“Security footage,” Pidge explains nervously. “We saw everything.”

Hunk makes a fast, frustrated gesture and dips forward as he rakes his hands through his hair.

“Were you trying to die?” Lance asks, trying to curb the current of vulnerability that threatens to leak into his voice because he’s supposed to be the supportive one right now. He needs to be a sturdy pillar, not a frightened mess.

Hunk’s head snaps up.

“If you were, we’re not mad,” Lance promises. “We just need to know, because if you’re feeling like that, you can’t keep it to yourself. You need help.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Pidge adds. “We’re your team.”

“No,” Hunk rasps, throaty and garbled.

Lance balks.

“No,” Hunk repeats, his sincerity audible no matter how ravaged his voice is.

He cups Pidge’s cheek in one hand and Lance’s in the other, shaking his head with a fragile smile. Lance leans his face into the touch, Hunk’s palm is calloused and warm against his skin. He doesn’t want him to let go. Pidge clearly doesn’t either, curling her fingers around his wrist to keep his hand in place.

But inevitably he lets go of them anyway and picks up his whiteboard again, the felt tip of the marker squeaking softly as he writes. When he’s done he caps it, showcases what he’s written.

_I was super scared at that point. I was about to blab everything to her, so I made it so I couldn’t._

“You bit your own tongue off so you wouldn’t talk?” Pidge gawks.

Hunk gives a sheepish nod.

“Oh my god, that’s so hardcore.” She puffs a weak, breathy laugh of relief and hugs him around the middle.

Lance could almost drown in his own relief, so strong it could take him off his feet. Hunk isn’t suicidal. He’s just more dedicated to their cause than he is to himself. Lance wonders when exactly that happened, because once upon a time, he would’ve been the first one to run.

Hunk rubs Pidge’s back, up and down. He shoots an imploring look to Lance, head tilted to the side.

“She’s right,” Lance declares. “You’re a badass.”

Pidge pulls back a bit and raps her knuckles against the whiteboard. “We can do better than this. I’ll help you figure something out, okay? I’ve already got a few ideas.”

Hunk smiles and nods agreeably.

“Matt told me he can get you some pills that’ll help with, um…” Lance searches for the right phrasing. “What happened below the belt.”

Hunk bashfully scratches his cheek, nodding uncomfortably.

“I’d give you mine if I could,” Pidge says and she isn’t referring to pills. “Obviously that’s not a thing, but it’s the thought that counts.”

Hunk snorts, but it gets a grin out of him.

“You don’t want yours to begin with,” Lance scoffs. “It’d mean way more coming from me. I’d give you mine too, buddy.”  
  
Pidge and Hunk exchange looks and stare at him pointedly.

“Okay,” Lance relents. “Fine. I’d give you one. Not both.”

 _You guys are gross,_ Hunk writes.

“We’re not gross, we’re comforting you!” Pidge swats his shoulder in mock offense.

Hunk rolls his eye and then steps back, jaw stretching in a yawn. It just now occurs to Lance that Hunk hasn’t gone to bed yet. He has no idea how long he slept for himself, before Pidge woke him up and took him to watch the new most disturbing thing he’s ever seen.

He’d like to replace those images with something more pleasant and he also doesn’t want Hunk going back to his hazard of a bedroom.

“You guys wanna have a sleepover in the lounge?”

“Good idea,” Pidge says.

Hunk hesitates.

“Not taking no for answer, big guy,” Lance decides, linking their arms together. “But I will let you pick the movie.”

Hunk visibly gives in and submits to being dragged away.

* * *

Hunk falls asleep about halfway through the movie, stretched out on the couch cushions with his head resting on the pillow Lance put in his lap. His snores are quiet and his mouth is open, drool pooling on the pillowcase.

Lance is tired but he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to sleep for awhile. Not with Hunk’s torture still fresh in his head. Pidge leans against his shoulder, just as awake and just as aware.

“I believe him,” she murmurs softly. “Do you?”

“Yeah…but I don’t think he’s okay.”

The glow of the screen is enough to make out the scabs on Hunk’s knuckles.

“Hey, Lance?”

“Hm?”

“I wish he would’ve just talked,” she says, lowering her tone another octave as she casts a hooded look to Hunk’s face. “I think whatever battle came after would’ve been easier than watching that video.”

“Never tell him that.” Lance closes his eyes, hiding from her and the private agreement that he does not want to feel. “Never, ever tell him that.”

Pidge reaches across Lance’s lap to stroke her fingers through Hunk’s hair, featherlight so as not to wake him.

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Something of a vent fic? 404 plot not found.


End file.
